And the absolute best thing that could happen would for nobody -- no onlookers, no protesters, nobody except one solitary photographer -- to show up. Just let their handful of halfwits wander around a field and hoist a few signs and ensure that enough pictures of their pathetic assembly are taken for everyone else to laugh at. That won't happen, of course, but it's what should.

Pocket Ninja:And the absolute best thing that could happen would for nobody -- no onlookers, no protesters, nobody except one solitary photographer -- to show up. Just let their handful of halfwits wander around a field and hoist a few signs and ensure that enough pictures of their pathetic assembly are taken for everyone else to laugh at. That won't happen, of course, but it's what should.

Way back in the 80s the Klan wanted to hold a rally in Wilmington, NC. They got their permit but the word went out around town among the TV stations and the newspapers, and even the preachers in town all said the same thing to their audiences: they a right to rally, we have a right to ignore them.

On the day of the rally, there was one photographer from the paper and one cameraman from a TV station, but they hung back out of sight and were there only if something happened. A handfull of Klan Klowns showed up, waved their flag, and were obviously disappointed that there was no crowd at all. So they packed up and went home. They haven't been back.

The KKK has had three incarnations since the end of the Civil War. First time was during reconstruction. That version of the KKK dried up and blew away after federal troops left the south and Jim Crow was put into place. Second time was during the height of mass immigration to the US from southern/eastern Europe. In addition to being racist, KKK 2.0 was nativist, anti-labor, anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish. The second time around it became a powerful national political organization. It fell apart when then leader of the KKK, D.C. Stephenson, was convicted of rape and murder. The third time around was a FBI COINTELPRO op right from the beginning. The guys you see now are just mentally ill, idiots of combination of the two.

"Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, led the country when slavery was abolished."

Fun fact: That photo of Lincoln is the last formal portrait taken. He sat down for the photo soon after his inauguration. When the photographic negative plate cracked while it was being developed, the photographer threw the plate away because he figured there'd be plenty more opportunities for photos for the next 4 year of Lincoln's term.

That was right before he was assassinated. All we're left with is that one print made off of that one plate.

I quite disagree. The Klan used to be a very real, shockingly mainstream thing. They used to have rallies with hundreds of hooded Klansmen. THAT'S some scary shiat, knowing that a sizable section of your community hates you, and that you don't know who they are. The Klan has been marginalized to the point of near-irrelevance, which is fantastic, and I think speaks well of the US in a better-late-then-never kind of way.